Speaking to The Guardian newspaper, Amnesty International spokesperson Olaf Blomqvist condemned the law saying, “This is a huge step in the wrong direction…Thailand should be working to remove the death penalty from the legal books, not expanding its scope.”
The secretary-general of Thailand’s National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC), Sansern Poljieak, has defended the new law, claiming it is appropriate for the severity of the crime and does not violate human rights.
Thailand’s oldest newspaper, The Bangkok Post, slammed the NACC in an editorial, saying it had “done the country a disservice by secretly changing the law and instituting the death penalty as the maximum punishment for graft.” It concluded that “It is the duty of parliament and the public to decide such important issues.”
